Family and Friends

Monday, December 28, 2015

Yesterday, for the first time in years, I attended a service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis where I grew up (1987-96), mainly because my dad was preaching a lively and thought-provoking lay sermon (which you can read at his blog). Not having an obvious Episcopal church in Indianapolis to attend anyway, it was good to attend a service with my father and brother for a change, not something that happens often. While I formally rejected Unitarianism when I got baptized at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in 2009, it occurred to me that there is at least one sense in which (perhaps ironically, given that most UUs are very far from being monarchists) my UU upbringing shaped and continues to influence my approach to monarchism. This is that I refuse to let my commitment to Monarchy as the best form of government be limited by sectarian or theological divisions, and so (despite strong reservations about a few of them, particularly Saudi Arabia) I make no apologies for supporting not only non-Anglican but also non-Christian monarchies, probably more so than most (though not all!) of the Christian monarchists I know.

Obviously I think Christianity has something to offer that no other religion does, or I wouldn't have embraced it. Nor does it make sense to me for an English-speaking, Anglophilic traditional monarchist of European descent to adhere to any religion other than Christianity. But I refuse to be the sort of believer who sees value in earthly institutions like Monarchies only if they conform to my particular religion. This pluralist approach has occasionally led me into conflict (usually online) with fellow Christians (often Roman Catholics) who while they may have some sympathy for monarchies of their own faith decisively reject my kind of pan-monarchism. Anglicanism has its problems, but at least no Anglican coreligionist has ever given me a hard time for supporting Catholic or Orthodox monarchies!

In particular, while I think it is clear from Facebook posts like my recent one about St. Francis de Sales Oratory that I have nothing but respect for traditional Roman Catholicism, over the years on the internet I've often been frustrated with the sort of Catholics who have a bitter Anglophobic chip on their shoulder, as if they personally suffered in the Irish potato famine which presumably just occurred last month. I'm deeply grateful for my Catholic friends who are not like that, but it's an overly common problem in online Catholic circles, and gets quite tiresome. I just Blocked one such individual, which is probably more prudent than getting dragged into an endless and nasty argument. I wonder if it ever occurs to Roman Catholics who imply that being a good Catholic means hating England and The British Monarchy, that if they really believe that there is No Salvation Outside the (Roman Catholic) Church, they are essentially condemning an entire nation (dispersed via imperialism throughout the globe) to hell, for there are millions of people (including me) who are never going to be convinced that they ought to repudiate their heritage or their Crown.

More broadly, must Christian monarchists cut ourselves from the even larger numbers of people who can see, or might conceivably be persuaded to see, the merits of Monarchy, but are less likely to be convinced of Christianity? I don't think so, for if something is good at the natural level, it is good, and to be a monarchist is to believe that Monarchy is good. For Monarchy more than any other system of government reflects the Divine order, and this is true even if the monarch is not a Christian. So God Save the Queen, by all means restore the Habsburgs and Bourbons or Romanovs, and hooray for European Altar & Throne traditionalism, but let us also praise and support the Kings of Jordan, Morocco, Bhutan, Cambodia, & Thailand, the Sultan of Oman, and the Emperor of Japan, and let us pray and work for the restoration of the King of Nepal, the Shah of Iran, the kings of Laos, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, and so many others!

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Sultan of Brunei used to be reasonable, as did southeast Asian Islam in general. I don't know what's gotten into him. I fear Malaysia may be headed in the same direction. Basically the only current Muslim monarchies I still like (and I like them a lot) are Jordan, Morocco, and Oman. I wash my hands of the others (which doesn't mean that revolutions wouldn't make things even worse). It's the relatively secular ones that were overthrown in the second half of the 20th century (Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran), none of whose kings would have done such an asinine thing, that I really miss.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Secrets are safe with CharlesWhy is anyone shocked that the heir to
the throne, who will one day be head of state, is allowed to see
Cabinet papers? I’m more shocked by the idea that quite a few senior
modern politicians, unrepentant communist hacks, fantasists, drunkards,
tax-dodgers, etc, have had such access.If ever I have a moment’s doubt about
the Monarchy, it is dispelled when I look at those who hate it. Why do
they loathe it so? It has no power as such.But, like the king on a chessboard, it prevents others from occupying the space where it stands.Politicians long to be the ones being
cheered, they long to have mounted guards of honour and anthems played
when they enter the room. They want their own aeroplanes. They want the
Armed Forces to be their personal toys. They dream of requiring us to be
loyal to them.It creeps up on them. Cherie Blair
(having failed to get elected as an MP) once acted as hostess aboard the
Royal Train, and her husband loved posing with soldiers. Lady Thatcher
started turning up at the scenes of national disasters.David Cameron claimed to be speaking
‘on behalf of everyone in Britain’ when he wished astronaut Tim Peake
luck on Tuesday. No he wasn’t.He’s a divisive politician and he
doesn’t speak on my behalf (or on the behalves of quite a few others)
about anything. It was the Queen’s job, and she duly did it.One day, God willing, Charles should
do it. Reading the papers that reveal the miserable deals and
compromises of government should help him keep his poise when he grants
audiences to the trivial, unmemorable men and women who secretly think
they’re more important than the Crown of England.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Apparently republicans in the United Kingdom (i.e. the most despicable creatures in the world, yes, worse than terrorists, since I would rather be killed by a terrorist than live in a world without The British Monarchy​) are trying to make an Issue out of the fact that Prince Charles and Prince William, that is, the next two kings, occasionally see confidential government papers. The fact that I fail to see that there is anything remotely surprising or inappropriate about this merely confirms my suspicions that republicans and I do not actually belong to the same species, since I think politicians should be grateful that the Royal Family (perhaps excessively, in my view) tolerate their existence at all.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

(Warning: the link includes a picture of his face.)What a repulsive scumbag. Many people, including me, would be deeply grateful for the opportunity to sincerely swear allegiance to HM the Queen of Canada and it makes me absolutely livid that this hypocrite is going to be allowed to spit in the face of the constitution and traditions of the country he wants to live in. This ungrateful piece of excrement should be kicked out of Canada and never allowed to return. Send the vile worthless jerk back where he came from.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Absolutely appalling. Shame on these Muscovites, still enthralled with evil. Russia continues to celebrate Bolshevik regicidal monsters. An example of why I don't buy the Putinist Russia as Saviour of Christian Civilisation line. I will not be impressed with modern Russia until Communism has been as thoroughly repudiated and condemned as Nazism was in Germany and the Romanov dynasty is restored. Nothing else is acceptable. Long live Empress Maria Vladimirovna!

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Today was the fortieth anniversary of the Restoration of the Spanish
Monarchy in the person of King Juan Carlos I (b 1938), who if he had not
abdicated last year would now be celebrating his Ruby Jubilee. The
Spanish restoration, after 44 years without a King, mercifully brought
to a close a brief period (1 Jun 1973-22 Nov 1975) during which the
number of reigning European hereditary monarchs had for the first
time dropped into the single digits, something that must never be
allowed to happen again. With the new King being the brother-in-law of
the recently-deposed Constantine II of Greece, the restoration in Spain
could be seen as "compensating" for the tragic fall of the Greek
monarchy (confirmed via referendum less than a year earlier). Outside of
Europe, monarchies had recently fallen in Laos, Ethiopia, Afghanistan,
Cambodia (restored 1993), and Libya, with predictably disastrous
results, and Iran's had less than four more years left.

King Juan Carlos went on to become a highly popular monarch for most of
his reign, his popularity waning only towards its end prompting his
abdication, arguably a disturbing precedent for those of us who value
Monarchy partly because it is not supposed to be a popularity contest
subject to the fickle moods of the public as manipulated by the media.
Alas, in the four decades since that glorious day, not one European
country has followed Spain's example, and most of the continent remains
gripped by republicanism, boring at best, corrupt and traitorous at
worst. I pray that one day Europeans will come to their senses, wake up
from their politically correct slumber, and restore their Kings! #10IsNotEnough

Friday, November 20, 2015

It is deeply painful to me to confront the fact that in all that has been written about the trend of French tricolor flags on Facebook profile pictures, only two points of view are acknowledged to exist: those in favor of it, and those who are critical because they believe the flag to be "right-wing." Regarding the latter viewpoint, as people say these days, I can't even. I am so tired of people like me being completely ignored. Monarchists exist. And we will never accept the French Republic. Vive le Roi.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Politics can make strange bedfellows. I'm reluctant to agree with
anything in The Independent, and even this article's argument is
incomplete and misguided in some respects, but he has a point. The
Marseillaise is a rotten anthem, celebrating the most calamitous event
in history prior to the even worse 20th century, whose lyrics glorify
watering furrows with "impure blood" and slander legitimate monarchs
trying to restore decency as "tyrants." It might be pointed out that if
Tsar Alexander III put up with it in 1894, anyone can, but in retrospect
the Franco-Russian alliance was a tragic mistake that paved the way for
the apocalypse twenty years later. We cannot fight 21st-century
terrorism by extolling 18th-century terrorism.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Why is it that historically when the U.S. has waged war against enemies perceived as conservative or "rightist" (the British during the Revolution, the Confederacy, Spain, Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan) it does so with utter ruthlessness, settling for nothing less than total victory, but when the U.S. wages war against enemies either perceived as "progressive" or favored by (some) leftists, as Islam curiously often is (North Korea, North Vietnam, Communism generally, Iraq, ISIS) it does so half-heartedly, ineffectively, and inconclusively? Perhaps the inherently revolutionary and progressive origins of the USA (logically celebrated by American liberals, and illogically ignored by most American conservatives) are impossible to overcome, even for well-meaning Americans who would like to.(Note: this observation, including most of the specific examples, is not original to me, but I forget where I first encountered it.

I agree with the U.S. governors (including Texas's Greg Abbott) and
European leaders who are refusing to accept any refugees from the Middle
East, and am unimpressed by the arguments of those who criticize them.
These leaders' first responsibility is the protection of their own
people, not to rescue the world. No, most of the refugees are not likely
to be terrorists. But if even a few are, that is too many. (If you knew
that one apple in a barrel of a hundred were poisoned, would
you cheerfully grab a random apple and eat it?) How are governments
supposed to determine which "refugees" have terrorist sympathies and
which do not? It is known that Daesh (ISIS) have smuggled agents into
Europe, including apparently at least one of the Paris murderers, as
"refugees" and have boasted about doing so. It is also known that many,
perhaps even most, of these "Syrian refugees" are not even Syrian, but
are opportunists from other countries drawn by the West's generous
welfare states and higher standards of living. That is not a valid
reason to open the borders. I have every sympathy for _Christian_
refugees, but unfortunately the modern West's reigning ideology of
"non-discrimination" does not seem to permit them to be favored; in
fact, it appears that Christian refugees are actually at a disadvantage
under the Obama administration's current system.

And there are other issues besides terrorism. Already there are over
forty million (40,000,000) Muslims in Europe, a continent that was once
the heart of Christendom. Already their presence is transforming Europe
into something other than what people who love traditional European
culture and civilisation have always known, and not in a good way. I've
seen it with my own eyes on my visits there. After the Charlie Hebdo
attacks 27% of Muslims in the UK said they had some sympathy with the
attackers. (I am not a fan of the content of Charlie Hebdo myself, but
that doesn't mean that killing its contributors was an acceptable
solution.) Other polls have showed 40% of Muslims in the UK in favour of
the imposition of sharia law there. Studies in other European countries
have yielded similar results. A minority, yes, but far too large a
minority to be complacent about. The delusional stubbornness of liberals
like Angela Merkel, who may go down in history as the woman who
destroyed a continent, seems like lunacy to me. What kind of place will
Europe be in the future? Will it still be a land of castles and
cathedrals, open countryside, classical music, cafes serving pork and
wine, people who enjoy life? Or will it be something altogether more
grim, divided, and dangerous? You cannot tolerate everything and
everyone forever, or you will end up being ruled by those who live by a
firmer creed.

Friday, November 6, 2015

Sixteen years ago today a healthy majority of the Australian electorate
wisely chose to retain their constitutional monarchy under Queen
Elizabeth II which has served Australia well now for over a century and
helped make it one of the best places to live in the world. Today
despite smug predictions that monarchists would die out, a new
generation of Australians not old enough to vote in 1999 have discovered
the wisdom and appeal of their country's monarchical constitution. Yet once again the Crown is under threat, with a new republican prime minister who having toppled the excellent Tony Abbott
almost immediately abolished Knights and Dames (again). As Australia
welcomes its future King and Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess
of Cornwall, both major parties are now led by republicans which is a
deplorable state of affairs. Hopefully this is just the last gasp of the
tiresome "boomer" generation. While I'm under no delusions that the
majority of Australian teens and millennials are fervent ideological
monarchists, it does seem that most are simply not interested in radical
constitutional change. But monarchists must be vigilant and those who
have voted Liberal must punish Turnbull by withholding their support at
the next election. God Save the Queen of Australia and God bless her
successors Charles, William, and George!!!

Monday, November 2, 2015

Many of my British and Commonwealth royalist friends are deeply devoted
to the poppy tradition, and I respect that. Certainly it is good to
remember the men who gave their lives for King & Country. If I
lived in Britain I would wear a poppy when appropriate. However, partly
because as a pan-monarchist I am unable to regard 1918 and 1945
(especially 1918) as unqualified "Victories," there is something about
the conformism of it all that bothers me, and I think Peter Hitchens puts his finger on it here, while making it clear that he himself is deeply
moved by Remembrance Day and what it represents. Given that the two
World Wars, for all the undoubted courage of British and Commonwealth
soldiers, ended up damaging or destroying virtually everything genuine
traditionalists believe in, should there not be room on the Right for
tolerance of anti-war perspectives?

Saturday, October 24, 2015

I've been longing for and advocating the restoration of fallen monarchies, especially in Europe, for nearly 25 years, more than any other political cause, and I'm only 37. I'll never give up. It's part of who I am to believe in the Return of the Kings. As my friend Charles Coulombe once said, the last monarchist will die when the last human being does. But I find it's getting harder to have much confidence that I will see Restoration actually happen anywhere. And a depressing thought that occurred to me recently is that even if by some miracle (and it does often seem like it would take a miracle) we monarchists were able to convince a majority of the population of a formerly monarchical country to back the restoration of the monarchy, we wouldn't convince everyone, and in all probability, since society would still be influenced by currents of modern thought derived from the French and Russian Revolutions, the opposition from those who are implacably hostile in principle to any hereditary public office would be so furious that it would be difficult or impossible for the newly restored Crown to fulfill one of its key functions, as a focus for national unity.

"Unity" is one of the most frequent arguments that defenders of constitutional monarchy make; I've made it myself. In theory, a hereditary monarch, who did not seek his office but serves because it is his duty, who does not owe his position to any particular partisan faction, who is not a product of anyone's ambition including his own, who no one voted against, is much better suited to serve as a focus for patriotism than an elected politician, inevitably the product of a divisive contest. Certainly monarchies even in modern times have served admirably as a focus for national unity (one thinks of the British and European monarchies during World War II), and still basically do in some countries (Denmark, Bhutan, Oman, and Thailand come to mind). But can we seriously argue that the Crown currently acts as a focus for national unity in Spain, Scotland, or Australia? In these countries and probably others as well, enough people (even if still a minority) are bitterly opposed to the very existence of the Crown that it's become one more divisive, controversial, political issue. That's probably one reason why despite claiming to be a Christian, and Christians aren't supposed to do this, I'm tempted to dehumanize abolitionist republicans: because the Crown's unifying function arguably only really works if virtually all of its subjects allow it to do so, or if those who vocally oppose it are not actually counted as people. I don't just disagree with British people who advocate the abolition of the Monarchy; I don't want them to exist at all, because they potentially ruin my concept of what the Crown is for the British people.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as passionately monarchist as ever; I personally love monarchies and I freely admit that I care more about myself and the people who agree with me than I do about those who don't, just as abolitionist republicans obviously don't care about the people in their country who would be deeply saddened, even devastated, by the loss of the Monarchy, or they wouldn't be abolitionist republicans. If that sounds shockingly selfish, I submit that there is no political controversy in which preference for the interests of one's own side, even (or especially) if outnumbered, is not present. But that's the problem: it wasn't supposed to be like this. The moment Monarchy itself (as opposed to the actions of a particular monarch, which have rarely gone entirely without opposition) becomes a "Controversy," it loses part of its essence. It can no longer quite be everything it is supposed to be. Those of us who love it can continue to do so as fervently as ever, but how much confidence can we have in the continuing reality of the traditional mystical sense that the Sovereign in a way is the Nation?

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

This summer I wrote to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to congratulate them on the christening of their daughter Princess Charlotte, and also to say how much I'd enjoyed my recent trip to the United Kingdom in which I saw them in person. Today I was delighted to receive an official response, photos of which I posted on Facebook.

Reflecting on all the positive reactions to my post about my card from Their Royal Highnesses, many from American friends who don't necessarily identify as monarchists, contrasted with not-so-positive reactions to my comments defending the Prince of Wales and the Australian Crown at an Australian news page, forces me to confront (not for the first time) that it might be just as well that I live in the United States. Since I don't participate in American politics, I really don't care whether Americans are Democrats or Republicans, so can easily be friends with Americans from across the political spectrum, perhaps more so than many Americans in these politically polarized times. (While Americans strongly opposed to the British Monarchy certainly exist, I don't really encounter them in my daily life.) But my Facebook Friends in Britain and Australia, at least those I regularly interact with, are pretty much all monarchists, mostly right of centre--and I like it that way.

If I actually lived in Britain or Australia, I bet my Facebook page would be a war zone, and my Blocked list considerably longer than it is. My brother, who due to all his travels and musical projects knows many more non-American musicians than I do, tells me that all the young British or Australian classical musicians he's met are republicans. This breaks my heart, and is not acceptable, and I have no desire to be friends with people like that. I can't imagine having to regularly work with the sort of people who are lucky enough to live in a constitutional monarchy and don't appreciate it. What is wrong with them? How can they not love William & Kate and George and Charlotte? And after all Prince Charles has done for the arts? I just don't understand, and I never will. While there's something to be said for living in a country to whose constitution one can give one's wholehearted loyalty, I wonder if in my case it would really be worth the stress.

Monday, October 5, 2015

RIP Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Infante of Spain, Duke of Calabria, who died today at 77. As the senior male line descendant of Kings Ferdinand I, Francesco I, and Ferdinand II, he was one of the two claimants to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies for over fifty years.

Even the most diehard monarchists, like me, do not deny that there
were serious problems in France in 1789 and in Russia in 1917, though we
obviously deny that revolution was the right way to address them. But
the Portuguese revolution of 5 October 1910, 105 years ago today, has
got to be one of the most stupid, pointless, and unnecessary revolutions
in history. With virtually no support outside the capital Lisbon, it
really was pretty much "well there's no war or major economic crisis
going on, but let's overthrow the constitutional Monarchy because
Progress, and we're mad that twenty years ago Britain wouldn't let us
connect our two African colonies and it totally makes sense to blame
that on the King, and our new young King is insecure because we murdered
his father and older brother two years ago, and we're bored, so why
not?"

One hundred and five years of republicanism in Portugal is
one hundred and five years too many. And no, right-wingers, Salazar was
NOT an acceptable substitute for the King. On its lamentable
anniversary--which ironically is also the much happier anniversary of
the recognition of the Kingdom of Portugal in 1143--I condemn the
Portuguese Republic as an illegitimate abomination and demand the
restoration of the Monarchy. Viva o Rei!

Saturday, October 3, 2015

I believe the reason for the love of guns in America is
spiritual/psychological, rooted in fear and lies. The people of the 13
colonies were hyped up to believe that “tyranny” was imminent (hyped up
by a wealthy upper class that stood to profit more by paying less taxes
and not being limited by the Crown from settling behind the
Appalachians). They bought the hype and believed that only bloodshed and
the sacrifice of sons—even the apparent bulk of Christian ministers
cast off “render unto Caesar” in favor of violence against the state and
enemies. Then, the worst possible outcome for the American psyche: they
*won*! Because they won, their faith and hearts clung to that which they
believed gave them victory: 1) abandoning diplomacy & peace in
favor of violence, 2) guns, etc. This solidified a deep spiritual and
psychological attachment in the national psyche and kept alive by the
education system as part of the national mythos. It has kept alive (as
necessary) the often irrational fear of imminent tyranny. It has made
“war” sacred and the sacrifices of soldiers beyond question. You can
question any religious dogma, but as soon as you question whether
soldiers’ sacrifices were right or not, you’ve crossed the line.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

RIP Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, who died yesterday at 76 after a long illness. The eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II's grandson
Prince Louis Ferdinand (1907-1994) and Grand Duchess Kira of Russia
(1909-1967), he would have succeeded him as head of the House of
Hohenzollern had he not married a commoner. (Deposed royal families are
often stricter about their marriage laws than reigning ones, since they
have no way to change the rules that were in place during the monarchy.
Had the German/Prussian monarchy endured, it's likely that the marriage
requirements would have been weakened eventually.) A historian who
specialized in his own family including Frederick the Great, he is
survived by four children including Philipp, a Lutheran pastor, who has
advocated the restoration of monarchy in Germany.

I neglected to mention at this blog that his former sister-in-law Duchess Donata (née Countess of Castell-Rüdenhausen), married firstly to Friedrich Wilhelm's younger brother Prince Louis Ferdinand (1944-1977), with whom she had the actual current head of the family Prince Georg Friedrich, and secondly to their sister's ex-husband Duke Friedrich of Oldenburg, died on September 5 at 65. So the Prussian royal family is doubly bereaved this month. May they both rest in peace, and may the Monarchy they ought to have been able to serve one day rise again.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Today, in a remarkable milestone, HM Queen Elizabeth II (r 6 Feb 1952 - )
becomes the longest reigning monarch in British history, breaking the
record of her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria (r 20 Jun 1837 - 22
Jan 1901). Congratulations to Her Majesty on her many years of tireless
service to Britain and the Commonwealth! God Save the Queen.

Here is my updated list of Europe's longest reigning monarchs. It has not been
as often noted today that Queen Elizabeth II is now not only the longest
reigning monarch in British history, but the third longest reigning
monarch of ANY kingdom or empire in European history; only King Louis
XIV of France (72: 1643-1715) and Emperor Franz Joseph I of
Austria-Hungary (68: 1848-1916) still outrank her. If smaller states are
included, the picture might get a little more complicated, but to my
knowledge only Johann II of Liechtenstein (71: 1858-1929) would need to
be added; the Queen has already bested Elector/King Friedrich August III
(I) of Saxony (1763-1827).

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which we will perform at Britt Festivals
in Jacksonville, Oregon tonight, is probably the most thoroughly Modern piece of music that I
really like. By that I do not mean the most recent, for it is now 102
years old and there are many more recent compositions that I like. But
even if innovative in their own way (as for example I think the music of
Benjamin Britten--who was not even born yet in May 1913--certainly was), they tend to be the sort that can be considered
relatively "conservative" (problematic as that term is when applied to
music), not at the forefront of the most avant-garde currents of their
time. It is Rite of Spring that in my opinion is the last major work
to both speak with the full force of shattering existing convention, as
composers like Beethoven
and Wagner did before it, and yet constitute a satisfying artistic
experience for those of us who do not value "Progress" for its own sake,
a work that has unquestionably stood up to the test of time and as
early as 1940, only 27 years later, was considered "accessible" enough
to be appropriated by popular culture in Disney's Fantasia.

It is probably not a coincidence that it was in the following few years
that European Civilisation by my monarchist standards fell apart, never
to recover acceptably; perhaps there was nowhere else positive it could
go. The Rite of Spring premiered in a France whose republicanism was
still very much the exception, with the rest of Europe save Switzerland
and (since 1910) Portugal still ruled by monarchies whose reigning
dynasties traced their lineages back a thousand years or more to early
Medieval times. Here then is a snapshot of Europe as it was in May 1913,
a vibrant and restless yet outwardly still traditional society.
Remember that in order for pushing the boundaries as free-spirited
artists are wont to do to be interesting, there must be some decent
boundaries still standing.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

I am sick and tired of hearing about Germany and Greece and their disgusting republics. Germany has not had a legitimate government since 1918, Greece since 1973 or arguably 1967. A plague on both their houses. Nations that abolish their monarchies are dead to me. Their miserable politicians should be forced to step down and do penance in monasteries or convents for the rest of their worthless lives. Republicanism and Democracy have failed utterly by their own standards. It is long past time for Europeans to repent of the monstrous errors of 1789-94 and 1917-18 and return to the only system that ever worked: the divinely ordained rule by hereditary Christian monarchs from the same families that built European civilization for more than a thousand years before the satanic darkness of modernity descended. Get down on your knees, Germans, and bow to Kaiser Georg Friedrich I and all the regional rulers as well. Get down on your knees, Greeks, and bow to King Constantine II. Nothing else is acceptable. Return to Altar and Throne, or suffer everlasting wrath.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Apologies for my long absence here. I recently returned from a splendid three-week visit to England and France where I saw (or met for the first time) many monarchist friends. I am not sure I have the time or inclination to create a comprehensive blog post with multiple photos and so forth adequately summarizing the trip, but among the highlights were seeing the Queen and Royal Family at Trooping the Colour on the 13th and from even closer at Garter Day on the 15th, as well as my first visits to Versailles and the tombs of the Kings of France at St Denis. In England I went to Choral Evensong almost every day; here is a list of the music at all the services I attended. God Save the Queen and Vive le Roi!

HM the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh at Windsor Castle, Garter Day, 15 June 2015

Friday, May 22, 2015

There are so many errors in this article I barely know where to start. Louis Alfonso's pedigree would not put the Queen to shame; while they are both descendants of Queen Victoria, his ancestry is only 1/4 royal while hers is 1/2 royal. Louis XIV (r 1643-1715) was far from France's last Bourbon king; that would be Charles X (r 1824-30), or if the Orléans are considered a branch of the Bourbons, Louis Philippe (r 1830-48). And why
is it so commonly believed that Monarchy in France ended permanently
with the French Revolution? I see this error all the time. The French
monarchy did not "come to a sticky end at the hands of Robespierre and
later Napoleon." As anyone with even a rudimentary familiarity with
French history knows, the monarchy was subsequently restored and France
was governed by monarchs of various sorts for the majority of the 19th
century.

Still, at least the Duke of Anjou and French royalism in general are getting some publicity in the English-language media. The French Republic has utterly failed and cannot be saved, even by Marine Le Pen, nor should it be. Vive le Roi!

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The catastrophic destruction of cultural heritage in Nepal, along with the loss of human life, is horrible indeed, but I wish that more people could come to see the abolition of an
ancient monarchy, as happened in Nepal seven years ago, as being just as
tragic a cultural loss as this, though far more preventable. All
beautiful cultural heritage, tangible and intangible, should be
preserved or restored, and that includes monarchies. The great Hindu
civilisation that built these monuments was monarchical and
hierarchical, not republican or egalitarian, because egalitarianism
cannot create, it only destroys, like a man-made earthquake. In a way
these scenes are a visual counterpart to what was done, not by Nature
but by evil men, in 2008. Pray for the restoration of all of Nepal's
cultural heritage. Long live King Gyanendra, long live the Nepalese Royal Family, and long live Nepal.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

In the context of a Facebook discussion on Salazar (of whom I, unlike some of my right-wing friends, am not a fan), which ended up also encompassing various other topics as diverse as Game of Thrones and hypothetical monarchs of the United States, I wrote the following comment, which I'd like to also share here:

"1918 was really The End in a lot of ways. That's one reason why the
hysterical rhetoric of some conservative Christians these days about
Obama or whatever leaves me cold.

It's largely The British Monarchy
that keeps me from losing all interest in our present time.
Reactionaries who think exclusively in Continental terms tend to look
down on sentimental Windsor loyalist Anglophiles like me, but at least
we can cling to something that in spite of everything is still around."

In 2008 when I was getting ready to move from Charlotte to Dallas, I
discarded a number of things that I now wish I'd kept. One of them was a
poster I'd made in the early 1990s of the flags of the world's 28
countries with resident reigning monarchs. Twenty-eight was a convenient
number as the flags could be arranged four across by seven down. When
the Cambodian monarchy was restored in 1993, I happily added its flag to
the top, perched somewhat awkwardly. By 2008 the colors had
faded so it didn't look as nice, and with the death of Malietoa
Tanumafili II (generally considered Samoa's last monarch) in 2007 and
the fall of the monarchy of Nepal in 2008 the poster was no longer
current, so in a fit of pique at what had just happened in Nepal I threw
it out. I think that was a mistake. Nothing I can do about it now. I
can still see it so clearly in my mind, nearly seven years later.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

As I mentioned last week, it is widely believed that just as Communism constitutes the Far Left, Nazism constituted the "Far Right," as if if you take right-wing ideas and make them really extreme, you get Nazism. But given that the Right arose to defend Crown and Church, is that really accurate?

"Ever since the autumn of 1938, and because I realized that Japan would not join us unconditionally and that Mussolini is threatened by that nit-wit of a king and the treasonable scoundrel of a crown prince, I decided to go with Stalin. In the last analysis, there are only three great statesmen in the world, Stalin, I, and Mussolini. Mussolini is the weakest, for he has been unable to break the power of either the crown or the church. Stalin and I are the only ones who envisage the future and nothing but the future. Accordingly, I shall in a few weeks stretch out my hand to Stalin at the common German-Russian frontier and undertake the redistribution of the world with him."

Friday, April 10, 2015

What will probably always separate me from the majority of Christians, even liturgically traditionalist Christians who are not without appreciation of the merits of pre-Revolutionary Christian civilisation, is that they are willing to accept (perhaps with a little regret) that the World has largely moved on from kings & queens, hereditary succession, dynastic alliances, coats of arms, formal aristocratic hierarchies, royal courts, and so forth, and so those things cannot be considered as important politically as they once were, and I'm not. And if that means the world leaves me behind, so be it.

But perhaps someday the total collapse
will come and it will be recognized that we were right. The replacement
of kings with presidents has been a disaster for the Church and a
disaster for Humanity. Someday the insanity must end.

Few persistent misconceptions are more irritating for real
right-wingers (that is, reactionary monarchists) than the canard that
the Nazis were "right-wing," that is, just sort of a more extreme
version of the Tories. Daniel Hannan, with whom I strongly disagree on
the English Civil War but who is correct about a lot of other things, sets the record straight:

"On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order
that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia. There would be no
come-back, he wrote, for capitalists nor priests nor Tsars. Rather, in
the place of debased, Jewish Bolshevism, the Wehrmacht would deliver
“der echte Sozialismus”: real socialism."

A come-back for Priests and Tsars, of course, is exactly what all genuine right-wingers would demand for Russia! Accept no substitutes.
Nazism, like all modern political evils, was basically a perversion of
Leftism, as the great Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
long argued. The only true Right is the Right of Altar and Throne.
There has been no legitimate German government since November 1918 and
no legitimate Russian government since March 1917. Down with all
republican regimes, "Right" or Left! Christian Monarchy Forever!!!

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Yesterday I received my copy of the DVD of this year's Society of King Charles the Martyr mass at New York's Church of the Resurrection, which I unfortunately could not attend in person in January, and promptly watched it, all two hours. Setting: Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, with orchestra...in the chancel (which
is not that big, yet somehow there's an orchestra there). This was not
the sort of liturgy that Congregational Participationalists (though
there were some wonderful robust hymns) or Humble Simplicityists (or, of
course, Low Church Roundheads) would approve of. I loved it. You can read Fr. Swain's excellent sermon, which also discusses Louis XVI of France and Nicholas II of Russia, here; the DVD is available at the aforementioned American SKCM website. (Readers may also be interested in this 2000 address on the same subject by David Flint of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy.)

Monday, March 30, 2015

A new paper by a professor at the London School of Economics and his colleague in Barcelona concludes that "hereditary monarchs with lots of legal power choose better policy
than other systems do, including democracies, non-hereditary dictators,
and weak hereditary monarchs, and this is reflected in higher growth." Despite this, they can't bring themselves to accept the implications of their own conclusions. Why? Well, because a lot of famous people since 1776 haven't liked hereditary monarchy and have said mean things about it, and we wouldn't want to go against them, would we?

Sunday, March 29, 2015

This was written by a Roman Catholic as a caricature of what Anglicans love about Anglicanism, but I sort of like it anyway:

"I can understand anyone wanting to belong to the Anglican Church with
its Dickensian niceness of manners, its pleasing hymns, its dreaming
spires, the village green, the rose cheeked boys framed in frills, the
romance of the cemetery, the cheerful order of rank, the reliable
connection to Queen and state. Who wouldn't want to share an ancestry
with ladies in poke bonnets carrying posies with their dainty Book of
Common Prayer? To be able to weep tears of pride at the thought of
Jerusalem built on England's green and pleasant land?"

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Inspired by my recent visit to St. Louis, here is a new chart of the monarchs of the world at the time of the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Most if
not all of these countries would have had exhibits in St. Louis that
summer; the bronze doors of the Cathedral Basilica's Blessed Sacrament
Chapel were donated by the Austrian imperial government from its
exhibit. Despite the loss of France, republicanism was still largely
confined to the Americas (sadly, Brazil had already fallen). This
balance (of monarchies versus republics) should be considered a
reasonable minimum for monarchists.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Recently I spent a delightful few days in St. Louis, Missouri, the leading American city named for a king (Louis IX of France). Here I am at the iconic statue of the city's royal namesake at the St. Louis Art Museum.

It's amazing how many modern global problems can be traced to the overthrows of monarchies. Don't like the Iran situation? Blame the fall of the Shah in 1979. Don't like the Taliban? Blame the coup against King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan in 1973. Don't like chaos in Libya? Blame the overthrow of King Idris in 1969. Don't like ISIS? Blame the murder of King Faisal II of Iraq in 1958. Don't like Nazism? Blame the dismemberment of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918. Don't like Communism? Blame the fall of Nicholas II in 1917. And so on. Yet the world stupidly keeps refusing to listen to the only people who have been consistently right for the past 225 years: Monarchists.

Monday, January 26, 2015

I strongly support Prime Minister Tony Abbott's decision to award an
Australian knighthood to HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, who has been
involved with many facets of Australian life over the past six decades,
and condemn the mean-spirited carping from spiteful republican ingrates
who fail to appreciate how extraordinarily fortunate they are to live
in a constitutional monarchy and to have an elected leader who
appreciates the importance of tradition, duty, and public service. God
Save the Queen of Australia and God bless Prince Philip!

Monday, January 19, 2015

I believe, even as a non-Catholic, that the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church has the authority, if he chooses to do so, to resolve, at least for Catholics, hitherto disputed successions in monarchies that are or once were Catholic. He does not, however, have the authority to endorse the replacement of a Catholic Monarchy with a Republic, for such a development is intrinsically Evil and can never be approved under any circumstances.

Therefore, all non-sedevacantist Catholics must recognize Felipe VI as the legitimate King of Spain and Elizabeth II as the legitimate Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms, since the Vatican does, regardless of what they think about the events of previous centuries. No dispute is justifiable. "Carlism" or "Jacobitism" that does not have the blessing of the Holy See has no reason to continue. But Catholics have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to obey Leo XIII and accept the French Republic or any other republic occupying the territory of what was once a Catholic Monarchy, just because the Vatican now also has diplomatic relations with those republics.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

On today's date in 1871, 144 years ago, King Wilhelm I of Prussia
(1797-1888) was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at
Versailles, following the Prussian victory over Napoleon III in the
Franco-Prussian War. Over the course of the next four decades the newly
united Germany would become one of the most dynamic and exciting
countries in the world, with more Nobel prizes than Britain, France, and
the United States combined, a rapidly growing economy, and a glittering
and vibrant culture. Unlike the revolutionary unification of Italy ten
years earlier, most of the ancient smaller local monarchies (Hanover
being the notable exception)--kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies, and
principalities--were allowed to survive and continue to maintain their
own courts and constitutions, with the Kingdom of Bavaria even having
its own consulates abroad. Today, however, Germany languishes under an
illegitimate federal republic, an abomination that forces all localities
into its republican Procrustean bed, an artificial and unlovely
monstrosity that needlessly cuts today's Germans off from their glorious
and colourful monarchical past. The true Germany is not the Republic,
nor is it the Nazis or the Communists. The true Germany is the Germany
of princes, dukes, kings, and Kaisers, so shamefully and tragically
abandoned in 1918! May it rise again and deliver us from the tyrannical
banality of republicanism. Es lebe der Kaiser Georg Friedrich Prinz von Preußen!

Saturday, January 17, 2015

It is interesting how democratic republicans and advocates of Leftist or Rightist dictatorships, though opposed to each other in so many ways, all agree on one fundamental premise, that is denied only by traditional monarchists: that the head of state should be someone who wanted to be head of state and had to prove his "merit" in some way to attain the office.

Monday, January 12, 2015

To grasp how absurd and offensive it is that yesterday's rally for "Unity" in Paris was titled "Marche Republicaine," imagine how odd it would be if a purportedly non-partisan anti-terrorism mass demonstration in London were called "Monarchist March." "Unity" for everyone except royalists, it seems. But that is typical in France where the Republic is worshiped like a god, as if no one could possibly fail to identify with it.

Since the French Revolution, Christian Monarchies have been overthrown by people who were also opposed to Christianity, and the new republics associated with secularism. Muslim monarchies, on the other hand, with the exception of Albania's (the only Muslim monarchy of modern times located entirely in Europe), have generally been overthrown by practicing Muslims who would never dare to attack Islam, at least not to the degree that revolutionaries in historically Christian lands have attacked Christianity, and sometimes (e.g. Iran) by Islamic theocrats acting in the name of Islam. Even in Egypt and Turkey, where Islamic monarchies were replaced by relatively secular republics, few if any republicans would have wanted to be seen as anti-Islam (and both countries now seem to be moving in a more Islamic direction). This suggests that despite a long history of Islamic monarchies, Islam is intrinsically less compatible with monarchism than Christianity is.

The decline of "Altar & Throne" Christian Monarchy in Europe has coincided with the decline of European Christianity, whereas Islam appears stronger than ever in the many countries once ruled by Muslim monarchs that are now republics. Islam has significantly more power in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iran today under republican governments than it did under those countries' 20th-century monarchies, but European republics are all much more secular than they ever were as monarchies. Of the Muslim monarchies that survive today, it seems that if any of them were overthrown they would be more likely to be replaced by an "Islamic Republic" than by a secular one. Despite being frequently (and inaccurately) denigrated as "medieval," contemporary radical Islam has little to do with nostalgia for the past, certainly not its monarchies. It is difficult to imagine a contemporary "fundamentalist" Muslim pining for the Ottoman Empire as a traditionalist Catholic might long for the Bourbons or Habsburgs or an Orthodox reactionary for the Romanovs.

Perhaps this is related to European leftists' seemingly puzzling fondness for Islam, which is hardly their ally on issues pertaining to sex: do they sense that it is more inherently egalitarian than their ancestors' Christianity?

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

I support Muslim monarchies (with the possible exception of Saudi
Arabia), enjoyed my 2013 visit to the UAE and Afghanistan where I met
some wonderful young people who are at least nominal Muslims, and am an
admirer of HRH Charles, Prince of Wales,
who has made dialogue between Christians and Muslims a top priority. At
the same time I have little love for secularism or for what the modern
West has become since largely turning its back on its own faith and its
own kings. For all these reasons and
more I have tried to resist endorsing overly reductionist or hostile
responses to the complex tensions between Islam and the West. But it is
getting increasingly difficult to maintain that the anti-Islamic
European "Far Right" are entirely wrong. Frankly I don't feel like much
of a plural-traditionalist pan-monarchist today. ‪Perhaps it is time to rally unequivocally to the West, not to the
degenerate false "West" birthed by the French Revolution and enthralled
with "Equality & Diversity," but rather to the true West of Charles
Martel, Pope Urban II, Richard the Lionheart, St. Ferdinand III, St.
Louis IX, Ferdinand & Isabella, Don Juan of Austria, Padre Marco d'Aviano, and Jan
Sobieski. In the absence of such leaders, perhaps Marine Le Pen (as much as I oppose the French Republic in principle) will do.